Carnegie Mellon Student Develops Origami Folding Robot

Date:

May 14, 2004

Source:

Carnegie Mellon University

Summary:

Devin Balkcom, a student in Carnegie Mellon University's doctoral program in robotics, was looking for a challenge when he decided to develop the world's first origami-folding robot as the subject of his thesis. Origami, the ancient Japanese art of paper sculpture, looks deceptively simple at first glance.

Share:

Total shares:

FULL STORY

A robot folding origami.

Credit: Photo courtesy Carnegie Mellon University

A robot folding origami.

Credit: Photo courtesy Carnegie Mellon University

PITTSBURGH -- Devin Balkcom, a student in Carnegie Mellon University's doctoral program in robotics, was looking for a challenge when he decided to develop the world's first origami-folding robot as the subject of his thesis. Origami, the ancient Japanese art of paper sculpture, looks deceptively simple at first glance.

"It's something we humans can do well, but we don't understand the mechanical details," said Balkcom. "Because a five-year-old child can learn to fold origami, we assume that it is a simple process, but the movements it requires are quite complex."

Balkcom's thesis project uses kinematics, the study of mechanisms, to determine how folding motions are made and how paper can be treated as both a flexible and a rigid material. Because robots are so often used for industrial and manufacturing purposes, they are engineered to work with rigid materials, Balkcom said. Paper presents a significant problem because it is flexible.

"There are a lot of complicated things going on when a human being is folding a piece of paper," he said. "How do we precisely place a crease? We line up the corners and roll it out in the center of the paper. We treat the paper as flexible material, but machines can't do this."

Balkcom built his origami robot with an industrial mechanical arm produced by Adept Technology, Inc., of Livermore, Calif. The robot uses a tiny suction cup attached to the arm to pick the paper up, rotate it and place it over a narrow gutter in the worktable. Then a ruler descends and presses the paper into the gutter to create a crease. This method is much less precise than a human and brings to light some interesting insights and questions about mechanisms.

"Human beings are mechanisms," Balkcom said. "We're very complicated mechanisms and we don't even understand ourselves. People do really neat things with their hands. Can we make robots do these things? If not, can we at least use robots to understand how humans do them?"

Balkcom's advisor, Matthew T. Mason, professor of computer science and robotics, points out the challenges presented by flexible materials and coordinated motions of two different parts at once. "Origami defies description by our current mathematical tools," he said.

Balkcom admits that his thesis is just the beginning.

"Origami is a good problem to study because there is a 'ladder' of origami skills and designs, from the very simple to the complex," he said. Although his thesis will only reach the first few rungs, it will create a basis for further exploration that may lead to more capable robots in general.

"Robots are a tool for understanding the physics and mathematics of the world around us," he said. "Once you build a robot that can duplicate human tasks, you can learn more about human skills that we often take for granted."

July 30, 2015  It is possible to predict the timing and intensity of influenza outbreaks in subtropical climates like Hong Kong where flu seasons can occur at different times and more than once during a year, ... read more

July 30, 2015  A new automated data mining system could lead to a dramatic increase in the detection of potentially illegal online sales of elephant ivory through eBay. Law enforcement agencies and conservationist ... read more

July 28, 2015  Researchers explain how the new paradigm of a digital healthcare system, as it matures, is putting the picture of the doctor-patient relationship in an entirely new frame and not always in a positive ... read more

Jan. 8, 2015  Though the past 15 years have seen an exciting run of creative scientific advances in fabricating three-dimensional (3-D) structures by self-folding of 2-D sheets, the complexity of structures ... read more

Nov. 14, 2014  Microtechnology has radically changed our lives, both in electronics and mechanics. Everyone encounters this every day and uses successful examples, such as the accelerometer in smartphones or the ... read more

Sep. 11, 2014  Researchers have created the world's largest DNA origami, which are nanoscale constructions with applications ranging from biomedical research to nanoelectronics. DNA origami are self-assembling ... read more

May 21, 2012  Researchers have shown how to create morphing robotic mechanisms and shape-shifting sculptures from a single sheet of paper in a method reminiscent of origami, the Japanese art of paper ... read more